Han Kang Nobel prize lecture book sells 10,000 copies in first day online in South Korea
Light and Thread, which takes its title from Han's December lecture, is her first book to be published in South Korea since she was announced as the winner of the Nobel prize in literature last October.
Booksellers and publishing sources told Korea JoongAng Daily that approximately 10,000 copies of the book were sold in 24 hours via the retailers Kyobo Book Centre, Yes24 and Aladin, which together make up nearly 90% of the Korean online book market.
Light and Thread was available to order online from Wednesday, and went on sale in bookshops on Thursday.
The 172-page book comprises 12 pieces, beginning with the Nobel lecture, in which the author of novels including The Vegetarian and Human Acts discussed her writing process and the questions that drive her work.
'Each time I work on a novel, I endure the questions, I live inside them,' she said, according to an English translation of the talk by e yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris. 'When I reach the end of these questions – which is not the same as when I find answers to them – is when I reach the end of the writing process.'
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The book also contains Han's banquet speech and a message accompanying a teacup that she donated to the Nobel museum, according to the Korea Herald. She had drunk from the teacup while writing We Do Not Part, her most recent novel, which was published in an English translation by yaewon and Morris in the UK earlier this year.
Along with the Nobel materials, Light and Thread also features five poems, which originally appeared between 2013 and 2014 in the Korean literary magazines Littor and Literature and Society – the latter of which was home to a series of poems marking Han's literary debut in 1993.
The book also features unpublished essays. One, titled North-Facing Garden, is about Han's experience tending to a garden that did not receive direct sunlight, and using a mirror to reflect light into the space.
Some 73.3% of those who bought Han's latest book were women, according to the online bookstore Yes24, while for Aladin 47.1% of buyers were women in their 30s and 40s, reported Korea JoongAng Daily.
After Han was announced as the Nobel winner last year, customers queued outside bookshops to get their hands on copies of her works, and online stores crashed.
A version of Light and Thread will be published in English. A publication date and its exact content are yet to be announced.
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